


Valkyrie's Song: Ascension

by Eisen



Series: Valkyrie's Song [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Dismemberment, F/M, Pre-Mass Effect 1, Precociousness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:36:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4114153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisen/pseuds/Eisen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is said that Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle; those whose actions lift them above the rank and file. This is the tale of how one such individual was forged. Part One. Rated M for Language, Gore and Suggestive themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Born Among the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Valkyrie's Song is a Mass Effect Fanfiction by Eisen. Mass Effect belongs to Bioware.
> 
> I am forever indebted to [coffeeguru](http://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeguru/pseuds/coffeeguru) for her willingness to edit my work.
> 
> Also, my thanks to:  
> [MaryDragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryDragon), for constantly being _the_ best fic writer in existence.  
> [Caek](http://grimmcake.tumblr.com/), [Doodles](http://dissatisfied-doodles.tumblr.com/), [Alyx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therutherfordwife/pseuds/therutherfordwife), [Aelie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelie/pseuds/aelie) and [Chant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chanterie) for being cool friends and everything that is good about a fandom.

The _SSV Einstein_ silently drifted through the void. The humming of the element zero core and the roar of the massive engines was all lost to the vacuum of space. The only souls that were actually aware of how loud the vessel was were the ones working in engineering. Throughout the rest of the ship the only sounds to be heard were those that the crew made and humming of the air recycler.

Lieutenant Hannah Shepard stood stoically at her post in the Command Information Centre; she and her fellow soldiers seemed to be one with the ship, only moving to salute senior officers as they passed or when their shift changed. Behind the stony mask though, she was bored to tears. Such was the unfortunate fate of marines on a travelling navy vessel.

 _“Transmission to the Charon relay initiated,”_ a slightly accented female voice called over the ship’s intercom.

The usual slow pace of work in the flight deck changed. Suddenly technicians fidgeted away at the amber haptic displays before them with an urgency that seemed out of place. Status checks and confirmations were called from booth to booth as the flight crew prepared for the oncoming jump.

It was all old news to Hannah though; she had been born in a space station, experienced humanity’s first forays through the Relays and missed involvement in the First Contact War only because even when threatened with one on an intergalactic scale – especially then – Earth still needed to be protected. She had lived through the growing of humanity’s galactic influence – lived in it still – and was now a part of the almost underground war that was the human-batarian conflict.

 _“All stations, prepare for transit,”_ the disembodied voice informed the crew.

The crew aboard the _Einstein_ did not even notice as the massive ancient construct reached out a tendril of chaotic energy towards the vessel, enveloping it in a blue-white nova and accelerating it to almost incalculable speeds.

To an observer it would have looked as if the tuning-fork shaped relay had simply emitted a random spark of energy that swallowed up the spacecraft, but several million light years away, another Relay flared and the _Einstein_ dropped back to comprehensible speeds, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. The vessel aligned itself towards its destination, and smoothly slid off, as if it had not just completely ignored the laws of physics, getting swallowed by the vacuum once more.

_“Drift at one-fourty-five-hundred kay.”_

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as her replacement arrived. “Thanks, Zabaleta. Any longer and they’d need to lobotomize someone to have their mind more benumbed than guard-duty makes mine.”

“Well you know the Alliance, Sir; always ready and willing to make mental patients of us, one way or another,” the man grimly joked.

Hannah merely nodded and hurried to the crew deck, legs protesting at the sudden activity after growing stiff from lack of movement. She had two things that needed urgent attention: first the bathroom, and then the galley.

~<o>~

The Lieutenant was busy eying her meal-ready-to-eat with suspicion, not quite trusting it to deliver the flavour that the label on the packaging had listed. Almost one and a half centuries since their inception and they still tasted like cardboarded air with a hint of plastic. Grimacing, she bit into what she hoped contained at least some traces of real beef.

While Hannah was vainly trying to chew through what had to have been the toughest steak she had ever tried to eat, a man approached her table and sat down in front of her. He had a firm jaw, closely cropped hair and piercing blue eyes. Unlike Hannah in her hardsuit, he was wearing the same battle-dress-uniform that all the other members of the crew were wearing apart from the commissioned officers. What set his uniform apart, though, were the reflective stripes that ran down the pant-legs and around the sleeves of his shirt, designating him as part of the engineering crew.

The man also tore open a meal-ready-to-eat he had been carrying and looked at what he had received. “Someday…” he sighed, “I’ll get all the parts of an MRE together that are required for a fantastic meal.”

Hannah grinned, still chewing. “Keep talkin’ about them like they’re lucky packets and I’ll start offering them to Eris.”

“Ever ladylike, speaking with your mouth full.” The man teased, his face not betraying anything.

Hah!” Hannah almost choked on the processed nutrients she was trying to digest, “keep talking like that, and I’ll kick that greasy arse right back to the drive core.”

“Alright, alright, I surrender,” the man said in a resigned tone, putting his hands in the air to emphasise his words. “Though mind you, they haven’t used grease on starships since… the last century?”

He just laughed as a slightly warm and very rubbery potato bounced off his head.

“I always wondered what they meant with ‘or for worse’, well, no longer!” Hannah exclaimed.

“Of course, the centre of the commotion is always the Shepards,” a baritone voice chuckled. Hannah turned to look at who was approaching and grinned broadly. A dark skinned man in an officer’s uniform approached, and walking around the table, slid onto the bench next to the other man.

“David!” Hannah and the man who had already been sitting greeted in unison.

“You know you two have no right being so happy, considering the mission.”

“Bah, the universe has enough grumpy to deal with in you,” Hannah said, waving one hand dismissively, while the other was sticking another piece of the game meat into her mouth using a plastic fork that had lost a few teeth trying to pick up its prey.

“I see your special brand of pragmatism hasn’t changed in the, oh, what was it now, twenty eight hours?”

“Ophcorephenoph.”

“And there she goes again; trying to sow giblets of MRE. You think any of them will land on fertile soil and grow, David?”

“John, for all I know, that is how they actually make MREs to begin with… would explain the taste.”

“True enough,” the man identified as John conceded, “Hear that dear? You might want to consider a new career in agriculture.”

Hannah merely nodded sagely, or at least it would have been, had her cheeks not been bulging with another portion.

The trio shifted to other topics, talking for a short while longer until David stood up, excusing himself. The two Shepards remained for a while, no longer talking, but quietly sitting together, thinking.

“You know, I don’t want this life for her.” Hannah said quietly.

“Me neither, but the way things are looking, I don’t think there is anything we can do but let her decide.” John responded in the same tone.

“Every time I go out there, I worry for her, for you. Will she have a mom by the end of that day, will you have a wife?”

John reached out and took Hannah’s hands in his own, moving the tray and leftover MRE packaging aside and looking down at their hands. “I feel the same way, and that’s why you have to come back.”

~<o>~

A rare kind of focus controlled the hand as it carefully guided the piece into place, gently pressing it into its designated slot. The hand held steady as the cement that had been applied shortly before melted the two pieces together under the gentle pressure. Letting go of the piece that had just been added, the hand moved away and around, coming back to grasp the whole construction.

It was a turian cruiser, the avian creatures’ sharp geometric design apparent. Normally, turian crafts were painted a matte white, highlighted by dull orange streaks, but this one was a dull grey on every exposed surface. The hand gently lifted the craft up, until the space-vessel was in line with a pair of sage green eyes that came close to the craft, scrutinizing it heavily. Then with the utmost care the ship was lowered again, onto a large transparent barrier.

Eris Shepard sat at the workstation that had been set up in the quarters shared by her and her parents. Like many spacers, she was an only child – parents could not afford to have hundreds of children running around with the tight living quarters aboard most vessels. The young teenage girl wondered sometimes what it would have been like to grow up on one of the colonies, or mega-cities; somewhere she could have had many friends, if not perhaps siblings of her own.

But no, that was not her lot. Instead she was the only child her parents ever had, and probably would ever have. She was also alone when it came to the whole vessel, a single child among all the adults. So she learned and grew up, far beyond her years for her age, but despite the forced rapid maturing of character there was an aura about her – a barely contained energy - that revealed itself only through the girl’s very deliberate movements.

The look of utter concentration on her face softened until it grew into a relaxed, lopsided grin as she inspected her handiwork. The model cruiser had been seamlessly put together, no excess cement, mould-lines or shavings marring it. Eris pushed out the chair she had been sitting on and, standing up, grabbed an aerosol paint-gun from one of the shelves and carefully applied the first layer of paint, a black undercoat. Once the plastic space craft was completely coated with midnight sheen, she returned the spray-gun to its place, and as if to purposefully contrast the focus and care from moments ago, burst into a full-out sprint, the automatic doors of the cabin barely opening before she slipped through them sideways and yet still managing to make this seemingly wild outburst seem deliberate and graceful.

~<o>~

Hannah and John had just taken their trays and deposited them in the cleaning chute when something red streaked around a corner and collided with the latter, causing him to stumble back a few steps.

“Oof!” the middle-aged engineer exclaimed as the air was driven from his lungs. A shock of deep red hair was pressed against the bottom of his jaw and a young set of arms wrapped tightly around him, trapping his arms against his body.

Just as quickly as she had wrapped herself around him, the girl detached herself again and hopped backwards a few steps, brimming with excitement. “Mission accomplished, sir! The cruiser you got me is all done but for the paintjob!”

Having recovered from the winding, John only chuckled, ruffling his daughter’s hair. “That’s great Eri. When the base is dried we can argue together about which colours go together best.”

Eris tried to duck away from his hand as fast as possible, using her fingers to try comb out any knots and straightening it after the good-natured gesture had messed it up. “Daaad! Not the hair! You know I hate combing this…”

“Only if you stop running into me like a cannonball all the time. Why don’t you shower your mother in barely contained enthusiasm sometimes?”

“Mom’s always wearing that stupid armour! It hurts!”

At this both parents chuckled. Then Hannah put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, steering her to look her in the face solemnly. “Dear, we’ll be arriving at Mindoir soon. Please get ready.”

Eris merely nodded in response; she knew what was to come. The girl had spent all her life aboard military space-faring vessels alongside her parents. By now the battle-station protocols used by the Alliance were second nature to her.

“But first you look in awe upon my masterpiece!”

The three Shepards left to have a look at the product of the enthusiastic girl’s labours, striking an odd picture aboard the otherwise spartan Systems Alliance vessel.

~<o>~

It had been about fifteen minutes since they had admired Eris’ work when the ship-wide intercom crackled to life again.

_“Twenty minutes to insertion, all hands prepare for battle-stations.”_

John pecked his wife on the cheek and hurried towards engineering. Hannah put her hand to where his lips had brushed her – his slight stubble scratched – with a distant look on her face. It only lasted a moment though; soon she was checking and double-checking the condition of her hardsuit and other equipment, running a diagnostic scan on her omnitool’s operating system, clamping grenades to the specially designed slots on the hardsuit and re-assembling her rifle after having just finished cleaning it.

Finally she holstered the compact standard-issue pistol to the magnetized area at her hip and slipped the folded-up assault-rifle into its designated mag-lock on the back of her armour. Turning around, she saw her daughter solemnly watching her preparations. Hannah placed her hands on Eris’ shoulders as before, brushing a strand of striking red hair out of the girl’s verdant eyes. “Alright dear, you know what to do. Just look after your dad for me for a short bit and I’ll be right back before you know it.”

“You’d better…” the girl mumbled.

With that Hannah lifted her helmet from its place on the table and briskly walked out of the room, blinking furiously to keep the tears at bay. This was always the hardest part -- making promises she knew she had no right to make.

~<o>~

“Alright lads, how’s my third favourite girl in the galaxy doing?!” Chief Engineer Shepard shouted as the elevator opened and he rocketed in from the opening doors at a high-paced gait.

“Almost as great as the others, sir!” a woman whose hands were a blur over the console she was working at responded.

“Almost as pretty too,” a male voice sounded from underneath the walkway.

“Watch it Collins! Both of them could whip your arse harder than I ever could!” Shepard shouted in response,then signifying an end to the levity. All kinds of system checks were being called across the room: a myriad of temperatures, fuel levels, coolant status, a whole range of details pertaining to the core and more percentages than any uneducated mind would be able to decipher.

The chief engineer took his post that overlooked the majority of the systems, screens all around him with glaring displays pertaining to almost all the systems aboard the Einstein. Crew scuttled about either bearing replacement parts, replaced parts, data pads with rows of information, or just running to some other post that needed manning. Compared to a short while ago, the ship was now as a creature out of hibernation.

~<o>~

Lieutenant Shepard’s entry into the cargo bay was akin to that of a shark into water; a silent hunter, smoothly moving with a determined purpose. Soldiers looked up from their equipment and reflexively straightened that tiny bit more. She, however, didn’t seem to notice the slight ripple-effect her arrival caused. She moved right past most of the men assembled and walked up to a pair that were busy conversing in hushed tones. Noticing her, they turned from their discussion and saluted, a greeting she returned.

“Shepard.” They greeted in succession. The first was of an average - if fit - build, a pale complexion with dark hair and an angular face, seemingly of European descent. The other had slightly darker skin, powerfully built and also with black hair, he – unlike the other - had striking tribal tattoos painted on his face revealing his Māori heritage.

“Parata, Udresku,” Hannah returned the greeting, nodding at each in turn, “You guys had a look at what we’re heading into?”

“Yeah, not lookin’ too good,” Parata said in a strong South-Oceania accent, “This is the most organised and well executed raid to date. It won’t be easy.”

“Well, we’d best get ready then.” Turning from her two fellows, she addressed the rest of the soldiers in the room. “Alright boys, tie your shoelaces and pull up your socks! We’re going to school!”

 

 


	2. Planetfall

Hannah gripped the hand-rail attached to the low roof tightly as the doors of the Kodiak Shuttle dropped down, shutting out all light in the confined space. It was pitch black for a moment and then the haptic controls that operated the communication holo and doors flickered to life, bathing the vehicle’s passengers in a soft, amber glow.

There was a dulled metallic ‘clunk’ as the docking clamps released the transport and a small lurch as the eezo engines kicked in. As soon as the vehicle’s weight was negated and its own gravitational field enhanced, the crew inside ceased to experience any inertial pull. They stood in silence as the pilots directed the craft towards the nearby planet, kinetic barriers whining as they absorbed the heat of atmospheric entry.

As soon as the barriers ceased making a noise, Lieutenant Shepard looked around, as if doing a final role-call. Nodding to herself in satisfaction she spoke up to address those assembled, “Alright men, listen up!”

Outside the Kodiak, distant explosions and anti-air gunfire could now be heard as it neared its destination.

“This planet is under hostile control; we have confirmed reports of batarian slavers in control of the main colony. All outlying settlements have gone dark, so we’re assuming the inhabitants of those have either gone into hiding or were killed in the initial attack. We believe that the majority of the civilian population have already been herded onto the enemy landing craft, so after the anti-air support is taken out, those are our top priority!”

The Kodiak rocked slightly as it got in range of the anti-air guns and mass-accelerated shells started exploding around it - the shrapnel was easily deflected by the craft’s powerful barriers and hull plating, but there was no way to stop the shock-waves.

 _“We’re gonna get down and low, Lieutenant. Come up on the insertion point from the east; the terrain should keep us clear of AA fire,”_ the Kodiak pilot's deep voice carried over the intercom that linked the passenger bay with the cockpit.

“Roger that, Zondi,” Shepard replied. She withdrew her rifle from its storage on her back, idly watching as it smoothly extended into its full form. Once it was fully unfolded, she slung the strap over her head. She didn’t know why they were no longer standard-issue, the simple piece of fabric that had saved her from losing her weapon on several dozen occasions, not to mention that it allowed her to have her hands free while still having the weapon close at hand.

Satisfied with her last-minute preparations, Hannah punched the haptic display on the wall-panel beside her. With a pneumatic hiss, the doors of the Kodiak depressurised and opened up, sliding backwards along the vehicle until they were fully opened. Outside, the landscape was a blur as an alien treeline and hillside rushed past, with the occasional lone animal looking up in surprise at the speeding shuttle.

“Remember boys, check your targets! This is a human colony and I’ll be damned if we have any more human casualties thanks to fucking-unfriendly-fire!” She had to shout so that the words were audible over the rushing air. Two or three of the marines nodded, affirming that they had heard what she said.

Then the Kodiak veered up sharply as a large construction loomed up out of the foliage. The Kodiak’s reverse thrusters kicked in and it slowed down. By the time it reached the top of the structure it was able to alight near the edge as gently as a butterfly on a flower. The marines poured out of the open doors. Shepard signalled that two move ahead and take lookout, while two more took up covering positions.

 _“Hawk-One, package delivered, returning to safe distance.”_ The Kodiak, its payload delivered, dropped from the edge again, disappearing to wait until it was needed again, either for air support or to extract.

“Form up, squad!” the Lieutenant barked and the four remaining marines assembled by her, near some large crates. She brushed a stray strand of auburn hair out of her face and addressed those assembled, “Delta-squad, our job is to clear a way to the hostile transports. Bravo will take care of the AA and Charlie will try to reclaim some of the city and its communications network - see if there is any additional intel to salvage.”

She looked over to where the capital settlement of the colony was located behind them – a hive of prefabricated shelters, thick black clouds of smoke billowing from it into the sky. “It’s up to us to make sure these bastards think twice before attacking one of ours again!”

Hannah straightened up and slipped her helmet over her head, her face now hidden behind the armoured faceguard and tinted visor. She moved around the container, rifle in hand and scanning everything that came into sight, analysing it for threats. The four that had gathered with her also performed last-second preparations and followed after her.

Inside her helmet the HUD lit up, screens linked to cameras on the outside compensating for where armoured plating restricted vision and this further enhanced by holographic enhanced reality. Three dimensional shapes appearing above her squad mates as well as a thin highlighting so that she could easily distinguish them from the surrounding terrain.

Boot-time status checks scrolled down the left of her visor as the hardsuit’s microframe linked to the helmet. Medigel supplies and dispensers were verified; air seals and armour integrity were confirmed. Finally satisfied with its status the armour’s VI went back to its passive state, the text running down Hannah’s visor finally winking out as the external speakers came online. _Two seconds John, I know you can do better_ , the marine thought to herself as her husband’s modified program did its work.

“Stepesh, Marshall, I want you to scout on ahead. Stay out of sight and look out for any traps or ambushes. We know they know we’re coming. Hopefully they just don’t know from where.”

Marshall, a lithe man who had painted his armour in the old-earth style fatigues and Stepesh, a short woman wearing a dull grey hardsuit nodded, both disappeared into the urban jungle that Delta was gradually entering, the only indicators of where they were being the markers floating above them on friendly heads-up-displays.

“Meyer, Houghes, Ndlovu, you’re on point – watch for snipers.” The three marines nodded and moved up to the front of the group, each covering a direction the other was not.

“Lee, rear-guard. Austin, you’re with me.” Lee, whose hardsuit was an aircraft-grey, flipped off a casual salute and moved to the back of the group. Austin was a monster of a man with his armour painted a dark crimson; Hannah sometimes thought that he would not be out of place if he were found among a group of pirates like the ones attacking the colony.

 _“Overlord, this is Delta-One. Boots on the ground and heading to the objective,”_ Shepard transmitted over the comm system to Command aboard the Einstein.

 _“Roger that Delta-One; Charlie and Bravo have also touched down and are en route to targets. It seems a bit too quiet down there One - keep your eyes open for surprises,”_ David Anderson's voice said over her headset built into the helmet.

_“Will do, Overlord. Delta out.”_

Shepard switched to the squad comm-channel. “You heard ‘em lads. Seems someone is hosting a party and we’re invited. Let’s not disappoint.”

There was a chorus of ‘Aye ayes’ and other acknowledgements as the squad delved ever deeper into the seemingly deserted city.

~<o>~

Aboard the _Einstein_ , the engineering deck had once again subsided from the flurry of activity before. Now there was only the occasional reading called out to ensure that the ship was still running optimally. The Chief Engineer took all of this in, satisfied that the vessel was as prepared as it could be and then he thought of the troops below on the planet’s surface, and worried.

~<o>~

Eris glared at the steel-plate wall panel of the room; she hated it, the waiting. It had happened to enough people aboard that she knew the ones that went with the ground teams did not always return. Her eyes wandered from the wall to the lockers where she and her parents stored their things. Every time she wondered if it would be her mother that would not be coming back. The _Einstein_ was at battle-stations, all non-combatants had to remain in their rooms and that was one of the things she hated about it all. That her parents were out there, fighting, and all she could do was sit here and build stupid plastic toys.

Then her eyes wandered to the footlocker at her parent’s bed and the communal extranet terminal set up in the corner of the room. As an idea began to take root, her mouth spread into a mischievous grin.

A short while later Eris was inspecting herself in the mirror; she had donned one of her mother’s old hardsuits. Like most standard-issue Alliance armour it was painted dull greys and black, with navy-blue highlights. There were several chips, dents and scorch marks on the ablative plating, reminders of the times that this suit had saved Hannah’s life. The kinetic barrier module had long since burnt out, lack of use and maintenance over the years taking its toll on the older tech.

Eris used a band to pull her hair back and slipped on the helmet; as soon as the edges of the seals met they hissed as they magnetised and fastened, effectively pressurising the suit. The suit’s dated firmware booted up, suit checks and other data filtering across the HUD as it ran a self-diagnostic. Eris’ eyes couldn’t follow the quickly streaming text, and trying to just gave her a headache. So she closed her eyes until the flashing before her eyelids stopped – it seemed to take forever. Newer suits didn’t bother showing that data onscreen; they would only popup and highlight if there were faults or errors, but Eris knew that her father was working on his own custom system that still used the older framework; she was after all helping him develop it.

The younger Shepard had started high-school a few years ago, adolescence spurting her growth so that she was quickly approaching the height of her mother. Soon they would be able to swap clothes whenever it suited them. The hardsuit was still a bit loose around the chest and the undersuit was a bit long at the sleeves and legs, but otherwise it seemed to fit almost perfectly.

She stretched and flexed, trying to see the armour’s limitations. The girl had lived among the military all her life and so led a very healthy lifestyle, with fitness training every day in addition to martial arts lessons with one of her mother’s old friends. She was surprised to find that it seemed that there was no loss of mobility aside from the added weight – and that was already addressed in the motorized joints prototypes that were being tried out in more modern armours. _Science, Bitch_ , she grinned to herself, satisfied.

Finally she looked over to the worktable, where the model Turian Cruiser still stood. She hated waiting as she had to now, but her dad had promised her that they would paint it together. Not that she couldn’t do so on her own at this point – she had been building models since kindergarten – but it was always special to hang out with him, either of her parents, when they could spare the time.

Running an armoured finger over the fine work she had done on the model, Eris sighed. Activating the her omnitool, she moved to the haptic extranet terminal; time to test if her idea had any merit to it when it came to execution.

~<o>~

The comm-link squelched to life and Parata’s accented voice came over, _“This is Charlie-One. We have entered the communications complex. No sign of live civvies so far, dealt with a few tangos that were isolated from the group. Some of the stuff they’ve done to these people is monstrous – you might wanna prepare yourself.”_

Udresku’s voice was next, _“Roger that Charlie, Bravo’s having minimal success. The terrain here’s a bitch.”_

Hannah looked around her at the carnage; she was having difficulty keeping the rubbery steak from earlier down. There was a row of dead civilians that had been lined up against a wall and shot - and not all with guns, or it seemed to her, several sported wounds that had evidence of bleeding profusely before the heart stopped beating. Apart from them there was another pile of bodies, some seemingly also having been executed and simply left to rot, others had twisted expressions of pain frozen onto their features from what seemed to be some crude technological form of control device embedded into their skulls.

The Lieutenant took some consolation from the fact that some of those who had caused this now joined their victims.

_“Delta-One here, we’ve found some of that stuff you mentioned, Charlie. The sooner these fuckers die, the better.”_

There was a brief radio-silence and then Parata’s voice came over the comm again, _“The hell? Overlord, we have a problem.”_

_“Report Charlie, what do you see?”_

_“We’ve cleared out the comm-building; all of the consoles were trashed. We went to check if anything could be salvaged from the antennae but… damn.”_

Seeing what she had, Hannah’s mind had already made the jump to what Parata had found. _“Charlie?”_

_“They’ve rigged up the aerials as some sort of mass-cross; we’ve got a lot of bodies hanging here. Seems like the whole comm-crew. They’re all dead now, but there’s also a high voltage line hooked up to this thing.”_

_“Shit, trust Batarians to make the worst forms of torture worse.”_ Udresku commented.

_“Command, there’s nothing we can do here. The electricity’s fried anything that might still have been useful.”_

_“Roger that Charlie. Get your men and take up Delta’s objective. See if you can flank them.”_ There was a short pause as if Overlord was taking a deep breath, _“Let’s clean up our streets.”_

Each team squelched their affirmative, Shepard nodded absently, as if the ones she were speaking to could see her. Then she turned to her men. “Time for payback.”

“Yessir!” The team responded as one. They all took their given positions and the squad stepped deeper into what had once been a place of great opportunity and hope, but was now a heart of darkness.


	3. The Rock

Hannah ducked down behind the ruined wall just in time to avoid the barrage of bullets that chewed into the meagre cover and whizzed over her head. She waited a moment then popped back up, spraying fire blindly in the direction from which she had been attacked. There was the crack of a sniper rifle and the Lieutenant heard Stepesh crow in victory over the comm as a body toppled over from behind a wall. “I got you covered, Sir!”

“Thanks Step. Squad, wrap up any stragglers then pool ammo and check your gear.” While ammo was no longer in use in small arms, the terminology was still used to refer to the thermal clips that newer weapons ejected to prevent overheating.

The chatter of gunfire continued for several more seconds and then a deathly silence descended upon the square where the soldiers had bunkered down. After a brief pause Marshal broke the oppressive silence. “Clear!”

It had taken the Marines a whole day to forcefully evict the raiders that had landed on Mindoir. Part of Hannah was glad they missed what must have been a brutal assault; another wished they had been there to make sure the fuckers hadn’t done as much damage as they did. Psychologically and otherwise.

But they were now on the retreat; the discipline and trained skill of the Alliance response team easily overpowered the slavers once the Anti-air artillery had been reclaimed and the Kodiaks could be used to deliver fire support. Once more Hannah felt the two-sided bite, being happy the colony had not had more modern GARDIAN lasers installed yet, but knowing if they had had, they might not have been successfully invaded as they had been. _Fucking batarians_.

Hannah watched as the soldiers performed maintenance checks on their equipment and traded thermal clips. These were the most basic rules of the military, of the Marines. Dating back all the way to the twenty-first was the motto: ‘This is my rifle, many are like it, but this one is mine.’ It boiled down to taking care of your equipment, so that it could take care of you.

Eventually she judged that they’d had enough of a break. “All right men, hustle up and get ready to chase after those bastards.”

She waited for the business of the impromptu bunker to die down before she continued, making sure that all the soldiers’ attention were fixed on her. “Intel says that the raiders landed just within the perimeter of the bordering wilderness. Now I know some of you are colony kids, expecting endless prairies, but this is Mindoir and we’re at the fucking equator. You won’t be able to see two meters in front of you, so make sure you have your thermal sights calibrated, motion sensor active and ER on. No helmet-less rodeoing here. I _will not_ tolerate any friendly fire because you got spooked by your buddy’s fart.”

She narrowed her gaze as she looked from soldier to soldier, making sure they had all picked up on what she’d said. “Alright, we know they took some of those that weren’t  killed or escaped, so I repeat, this is a rescue op, not wetwork. Watch for tarantula mines and other traps and for fucks sake make sure you kill _them_ before they kill you. Got that?”

After a chorus of confirmations she nodded. “Move out!”

The squad moved out in a staggered formation, one member moving from cover to cover while another watched over their advance. Shepard was on the far left of the small column, her position slightly exposed but offering her a view of the entire group; she saw Udresku’s amber outline approach her through a wall, the ER painting him as a friendly with his name and designation floating above his head.

The three squad leaders had reformed the teams once they had secured the majority of the main settlement, with Parata taking the reins rounding up the remaining civilians and bringing them to a secured location. The majority of his and Udresku’s fireteam set down a perimeter for when the relief ships came. Udresku himself had decided to follow Shepard, as she and her squad cleared out any remaining pirates, slowly driving them out of the colony.

“These fuckers are proving hard to dislodge,” she commented once he was within range.

“Yes, but we’ll get them.”

She looked at him, face expressionless. “Is there something you wanted, Lieutenant?”

He shrugged. “Nothing much Shepard. I just wanted to remind you that while your position might have a tactical advantage, I don’t want to be the one to tell a girl and her dad that you couldn’t keep your promise.”

Shepard’s blank expression turned hard as she clenched her teeth at his audacity, but then her visage changed as she could almost feel her daughter’s shoulders under her hands, her husband’s lips ghosting across hers. After a few seconds she relented. “Of course, you’re right. The Alliance doesn’t need dead heroes.” She crouched down and slipped to the floor from her viewpoint, sounding as if she were talking to herself more than him.

As the Lieutenants spoke, neither noticed how one of the ER signatures winked out on the display, before appearing moments later as if nothing had happened, or how the orange line of a grey-armoured marine vanished as he silently disappeared into the rubble.

 

~<o>~

As the platoon neared the edge of the colony, the prefabricated buildings gave way to greenhouses. The clear glass structures were large enough to hold several acres of crops. The Marines walked between the buildings, space enough for several vehicles to maneuver separating each of them.

The soldiers tried to stick as close to the large houses as possible, moving from cover to cover as they advanced. Udresku had moved to the front and Shepard covered from behind, stopping every now and then to scan the terrain for hostiles as her troops advanced.

Shepard saw Udresku’s icon get highlighted on her HUD as activated his comm. “We’ve reached the edge LT. Looks deserted.”

Hannah made another pass of her surroundings with her scanners, checking that there was indeed nothing that would threaten the squads. “Roger that. Alright men, form up at Udresku, get ready for that jungle combat I promised you earlier. Gonna be a party.”

She clambered over some stacked crates, seeing that the Marines had already started congregating where the ER told her Udresku was. As she drew closer, something in her gut felt wrong - a tension she knew to trust after all these years.

Panic gripped her as her she tried to voice her concerns. “Delta, spread out! Something doesn’t feel right.”

Just as she got the words out, the world was swallowed by flame. She gasped as the breath was knocked out of her, as her body was lifted off its feet and was flung into the crates she had just climbed over, her armour making a metallic clang as ceramic impacted with steel. Fortunately her suit absorbed the blow well and she was back on her feet in seconds, running towards where her men had disappeared in a ball of white-orange. _Fuck…of course it was a trap, Shepard, come on! How can you be so blind?!_

She had brought her rifle to bear, scanning the smashed infrastructure for signs of life, for signs of enemies. But all she saw was scorched ground, shrapnel, debris and twisted metal. Scattered among the torn area were parts of the squad, an arm here, a leg there. Blood pooled from under the black cloud that was hiding most of their remains from her sight. She never thought she could be that grateful for pollution. There weren’t even screams; the explosion must have ended them all in the initial detonation, what kind of bomb would be that effective? All her men had been wearing the standard-issue ablative armour of the Alliance Marines, equipped with the extra protection of kinetic barriers. Warning bells were going off in the back of Hannah’s head as all the facts presented themselves. _Not_ hearing any sounds after an explosion near friendlies was far worse than the normal groans and screams. _They couldn’t all be gone…._

She finally managed to gather up the courage to head into the smoke cloud, making sure that her helmet was fully sealed so that the toxic smoke wouldn’t suffocate her. But as she took her first step towards the epicenter of this chaos she felt a sudden pain blossom in her chest, her kinetic barriers whining as they overloaded. She looked down at herself, seeing the hole punched right through her chest’s armour. _Fucking...trap_ , she thought as she collapsed to the ground, left hand fumbling to trigger a dose of medi-gel as darkness claimed her.

 

~<o>~

Eris watched the data that was being fed to the _Einstein_ by the groundside teams. It looked as if so far the liberation was proceeding well, with minimal casualties. She sifted through the data, trying to find the feed sent out by her mother’s hardsuit. It wouldn’t take long, the custom runtimes it had been modified with would easily set it apart from the others, but every second that passed where she was not able to ensure that her mother was safe was agony.

The borrowed armour she wore allowed her to interface far better with the ship’s systems and allowed her to bypass many firewalls that would normally have stopped her progress. She was grateful that ship’s security was not controlled by a VI; that would have made things far more difficult. Instead, it was one of the older fleet vessels, a model that still relied on technicians to monitor and track what was happening in the systems - to them she would just be another suit blip.

After several minutes she found Delta squad’s frequency. Discreetly masking her suit’s software suite so as not to appear on the squad’s HUD, she logged in. At once her own HUD picked up the rest of the squad. Several names appeared along with heartbeat monitor. She inspected each of them, heart rate slightly higher than normal, which was to be expected in a combat scenario, but nothing too extreme, which meant that they were not engaged in a fight at the moment.

She was searching for helmet audio and camera feeds when something odd happened. One of the suit feeds cut off entirely. The stats didn’t drop, or flatline. The icon tracking the squad member simply disappeared from the HUD. Eris narrowed her eyes, watching the offending space. Seconds later the icon re-appeared, as if nothing had happened. The stats were entirely normal, but something nagged at her...something was not quite right about that reading, that display. It disappearing as it had should have been impossible, unless the entire suit was destroyed, the server that was linking the suits crashed or...it had been masked as she was masking hers!

Forgetting about the video and audio she started searching for the signal that was sending the current suit feeds from the one that had disappeared. It proved to be difficult, but eventually she managed to use a bypass to track it down. The extranet protocol hosting the signal was on a completely different subnet mask from the rest of the squad...now she _knew_ something was wrong, and that wrong was entirely too close to her mother.

She tracked back to the logs, trying to find where the signal had originated from before it had switched off; when she found it she clenched her jaw in frustration. It was a dynamic address, changing every few seconds. She scanned the range it was in, which addresses were already taken by the rest of the squad and proceeded to track which EP the suit was currently linking from, since there was no way that that suit would not remain linked with all its fishy connections. _Aha!_

The first thing Eris saw as she enabled the video feeds from the suit were the crosshairs of a Mantis sniper rifle hovering over the chest of her mother’s hardsuit. The young girl’s mouth went dry as she realised what she had unknowingly become witness to, that the rest of the squad’s icons on the HUD had all turned a menacing red, lacking any vitals feedback, or displaying an error. Her mother’s was the only remaining living signal, and the heart rate was far too high. Far too high and with a sniper pointed right at her.


	4. Breached

It all felt like a dream. She remembered seeing her mother’s familiar blue-black hardsuit through the scope. Through the visor of the armour she was wearing. Through the eyes of an assassin. She had done all she could then: overridden the assassin’s medigel dispensers. Locked the actuating points, discharged the defibrillators…. None of it had helped.

When her eyes were open, she saw everything, but noticed nothing. The people on the _Einstein_ just moved around on their usual business, hurried otherwise or not. Most of them looked at her with surprised expressions. They never said anything - they might have shouted something. She was long past them by then.

When they were closed, it was like a video, stuck on a loop like an old reel from two centuries before. Her Mother’s familiar armour stepping through oily black smoke, rifle scanning. White glare, the muzzle flash of a high caliber round accelerated through mass-effect fields. Her Mother staggering, fumbling with her free hand towards where Eris knew the medigel catch to be. Her Mother, ablative chestpiece cracked and weeping, falling to a knee before toppling over.

She was in the CIC of the ship, half-sitting on the floor, half-kneeling, with her feet splayed out to the sides. She could not remember how she had got there. She remembered running out of her family’s rooms, the rest was just gone. At some point the helmet had been removed - It was lying in the crook of her foot forlornly. Anderson was in front of her. He had his hand on her shoulder and was speaking to her. She could not understand what he was saying, or she could not hear it. She could not feel his hand. _Of course you can’t feel his hand, genius, you’re wearing armour...I wonder if Mom can feel something. She’s also wearing armour. Funny, I can’t feel anything, huh._

“Eris? Eris Shepard! Are you listening to me?”

Anderson’s deep voice finally reached through the haze of _nothing_ and gripped her. New tears started welling from her eyes and she could feel her sinuses getting blocked up and running again with that annoying feeling that made you want to punch your nose off so that it would just _not run_ , because sniffing did not seem to work permanently enough.

“I’m not gonna pretend to be able to give you false hope, but you picked this up faster than any of our mission control; medevac is already inbound on her position. We’ll do our best to save your Mom.”

Eris sniffed hard, annoyed that she did not have any tissues. That her arm was encased in bloody armour. A handkerchief appeared in front of her. She gave Anderson a look of incomprehension.

“Just make sure I get it back eventually, those things aren’t as easy to get out here as they are back home.”

She nodded dumbly, blowing her nose and wiping away the tears. She was sure her face was a new level of blotchy...pale skin did not cater to pretty sobbing. A part of her mind recognised the attempts at focusing on menial things to try and block out the big ones, but she no longer cared. Or told herself that she didn’t. _Fuck! Fuck emotions! Fuck colonies in the middle of nowhere. Fuck fucking Batarians. Fuck backstabbing turncoat bitch assassin pricks. Fuck the fucking navy!_

Her hand slammed into the metal floor. The offending surface did not give way though, but neither did her hand hurt. _Fuck fucking fucked armour._

She sighed. She did not much care about what others thought of the scene she was likely making, but she wanted their eyes to go away. To stop with their semi-hidden pitying glances. She wanted to punch that assassin so hard that they would give birth to their face. She wanted to _murder_ something. With her _hands_ . And _sob like fucking hell_ while doing it, blotches be damned.

She was halfway down the elevator back to their quarters when the ship shook and the soft blue light went off, replaced by a dull red one. _Fuck._

 

~<o>~

“More medigel, stat!”

The voice drifted into Hannah’s consciousness from far away. Far away and underwater, _Who was under water? Was she under water? Was the person shouting underwater shouting? How do you shout underwater?_ She was probably the one underwater, since she wasn’t the one shouting...was she?

“BP’s dropping. Not fast but it looks like her body is shutting down.”

“Like hell it is, check if the suit paddles are still working, set them up just in case.”

Shutting down? Bodies had no business shutting down; her daughter would explain it to them properly. The only things that should shut down were computers, and that only when they would be off for too long to consider even hibernating. BP was a shitty name for a company in the twenty-second century. Nobody used petroleum anymore.

“No show on those paddles, sir. The entire plate’s components are fucked.”

“Shit. Fine, get the ones from the aux-kit charged up, we’re not losing another soldier to this shithole. How much longer to the _Einstein,_ Zondi?”

“Ten minutes, Sergeant.”

“Make it five.”

“I’ll try.”

“Fuck trying,” another voice called, “your ancestors were taxi drivers, get this bucket going stupid like that.”

Paddles? Why were they talking about paddles? It _had_ been a while since she had last gone boating, it would be nice to go again. Maybe on their anniversary. Eris would understand. But first she needed a rest...just a small one. Eris would...understand.

“Brain activity is dropping again, sir”

“Dammit. Check the blood-oxygen levels. Fix shit if it needs fixing. I’ll try and see what I can do about this stupid huge chest-crater.”

“At least it didn’t hit the heart.”

“Fuck that, she’s almost running on a lone lung. The only thing I’m grateful for is that the fucker didn’t use tech ammo.”

The voices faded. Hannah wondered who had left the hospital drama on….

 

~<o>~

“Brown, sitrep!”

Anderson bore down on the technician closest to him. First his best squad leader and friend go down to friendly fire, or blackops, or...some shit. Then the ship gets hit by something. He just wished it had not been Eris who had been witness to what she had been, even if it might save her mother’s life. There were some things in the military you tried to keep compartmentalised. This was one of them. Girl had skill though, to pull off what she did.

“Mass Effect core is offline, sir. We’re running on backup power and I can’t reach engineering.”

_Fuck._

“Is Chauvet’s squad ready to go?”

“Yes sir, checked with them just before you showed up.”

“Good man, send them in, full zero-G gear. I want to know how we lost contact and power on our own ship when we’re the only one on sensors. Have Falkenhein check all frequencies for anomalies.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

 

~<o>~

 _“Lee, have you made it to the extraction yet?”_ The garbled synthesised voice asked, the omni-tool comm’s screen showing only static.

“Yes sir. All mission objectives accounted for.”

_“And you’re sure that nobody saw anything?”_

“Positive. I checked all systems beforehand, the only variable might be that Lieutenant Shepard, but she didn’t see anything.”

_“You’re wrong Lee.”_

“No I’m sure that she didn’t see anything.”

_“Not her, Lee.”_

“What do you mean, was there a surviving Civvie or Pirate?”

_“No, of course not. We’re thorough, unlike you, Lee.”_

“So what the fuck are you accusing me of?”

_“Your hardsuit Lee. It was hijacked. How did you let a prototype hardsuit running the Orpheus system get hacked?”_

“I... _what?_ ”

 _“We were watching. The Lieutenant would have died had someone not interfered, Lee. Someone  using a custom rebuild of the SANOS system over the_ Einstein _’s networks.”_

“So is there no extraction?”

_“No.”_

“What the fuck man…what do I need to do, kill the dick who hacked the suit?”

_“No, Lee, that will be taken care of in due course. You though, have become a liability. You will be taken care of now.”_

“The fuck, I thought you said no extra-”

The world rumbled, fire broiled. The small apartment building the planted soldier had taken cover in was gone. Dust filled the streets around it, coating walls, roads, pot-plants, small gardens and corpses in a fine layer of aircraft-grey dust.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this, the more comprehensive the better. If not, please also leave a comment detailing why. I aim to grow.**  
>  ლ,ᔑ•ﺪ͟͠•ᔐ        〆(・∀・＠)  
> 
> 
> e153n.tumblr.com


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